Musical Instruments

musical instrument, any device for producing a musical sound. The principal types of such instruments, classified by the method of producing sound, are percussion, stringed, keyboard, wind, and electronic. Among ethnomusicologists, it is the most widely used system for classifying musical instruments. Instruments are classified using 5 different categories depending on the manner in which the instrument creates the sound: Idiophones, Membranophones, Chordophones, Aerophones, & Electrophones. Writers in the Greco-Roman world distinguished three main types of instruments: wind, stringed, and percussion. This classification was retained in the Middle Ages and persisted for several centuries: it is the one preferred by some writers, with the addition of electronic instruments, at the present day. Musical instruments in China were traditionally classified into 8 groups delineated by the material used in the instrument: Silk, Bamboo, Wood, Stone, Metal, Clay, Gourd and Hide. We will look at selected instruments in six of these groups in this series The traditional orchestra has five sections of instruments: the woodwinds, brass, percussion, strings, and keyboards. The strings section is usually the largest and generally carries the melody. , the mellifluous tones of the singing voice is an instrument – and perhaps the most crucial instrument in choir, pop, rock, R&B, country and many forms of jazz. A Cappella and barber shop quartets wouldn’t exist without it.